Awesome places (:

What is this place?
Mount Everest is named after George Everest, a Surveyor General of India who was the first person to record the height and location of Mount Everest. Mount Everest is called Mount Chomolungma in Tibet and Sagarmatha in Nepal. Everest was formed about 60 million years ago and it’s the highest mountain on Earth, and the highest point on the Earth's continental crust, as measured by the height above sea level of its summit, 8,848 metres (29,029 ft).

Where is this place?
The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range in Asia, is located on the border between Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal, and Tibet, China.

Why do tourists visit this place?
Due to wide publicity , many tourists are attracted to world’s tallest mountain.

Some tourists visit the Mount Everest for sightseeing purpose, so that they can admire, appreciate and witness the beauty of the highest mountain in the world with their own eyes. Some tourists visit the Mount Everest to learn more about its exotic history, heritage and culture.

With George Mallory being the first to climb 22,989 ft of the mountain in 1921, people are attracted to experience climbing the Mountain. Tenzing and Hilary successfully ascent the mountain on 29 May 1953 .On 8 May 1978, Reinhold Messner (Italy) and Peter Habeler (Austria) made the first ascent without supplemental oxygen, and in 1980, a team from Poland led by Andrzej Zawada, Leszek Cichy, and Krzysztof Wielicki became the first to reach the summit during the winter season.
Some tourists love adventures and challenges. Therefore, they are attracted to climb the world’s highest mountain especially after a number of people successfully climb the mountain under different conditions. Climbers of all levels are willing to pay substantial sums to professional mountain guides to complete a successful climb. The mountain, while not posing substantial technical climbing difficulty on the standard route, it has many inherent dangers such as altitude sickness, weather and wind. Despite the dangers, some tourists climb the mountain to experience “conquering” the mountain, with a sense of accomplishment.

(What are the 2 positive impacts of tourism on the economy?)
Tourism has contributed to the revenue of the economy at Mount Everest.
As tourists usually spend on accommodation, food, entertainment, sightseeing, and shopping. Tourists enable food, accommodation, leisure, retail and transport industries to earn profits. Therefore, more revenue is generated from tourism for the locals living at Mount Everest.

Tourism has improved the development of infrastructure as to attract more tourists to visit the Mount Everest, the government will build better roads, railways , and there amenities, to make transport for accessible.
The government also uses the revenue to build infrastructures like hospitals and schools which can enrich the lives of the people.

(Has tourism affected the sherpas culture?)

The influx of tourists have had a significant effect on the local
communities, especially the culture of the Sherpas (a Nepali ethnic group)
who live around the trekking routes.


Villages are also becoming more dependent on cash rather than the
traditional means of barter and reciprocal labor. This has meant
that villages are changing from being self-reliant into being
dependent on "tourist dollars and outside resources to meet their
daily needs." More and more agricultural fields are left fallow
as more men are leaving to seek wealth from tourism. This means
that more food must come from outside and that there is less of it,
causing higher prices. The higher prices are a hardship on those
families who do not have income from tourism. Other traditions are
disappearing such as the custom of drinking Tibetan salt-and butter
tea. The price of butter makes this drink nearly unaffordable and
the supply of tea is uncertain since trade has also been disrupted
by the beckoning wealth of tourism employment.

The Sherpas have not saved or invested any of their income
generated from tourism. Rather, they have spent it on Western
items, further degrading their traditional culture. "Trekking
Sherpas," as they have come to be known as, have discarded their
traditional dress for "imported hiking boots, colorful wool
sweaters, and down parkas."

The division of the village into trekking Sherpa and non-trekking
Sherpa has resulted in the creation of a new type of class.
Whereas there were always class divisions in the past, all of the
people dressed and lived in a relatively similar manner. Today
donning the Western wear, the trekking Sherpa and his wealth is
easy to distinguish from a farmer.

Sources of information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest
http://www.mnteverest.net/history.html
http://www1.american.edu/ted/everest.htm

Done By: Tng Weeli 4M , Charissa Chua 4M